Piping has been used to transmit liquids such as drinking water, waste water, irrigation water, fire sprinkler water, sewage, and chemicals to name but a few. Often such piping is made of a plastic, such as Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Chlorinated Polyvinyl Chloride (CPVC), Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), Polyethylene (PE), Cross-Linked Polyethylene (PEX), or others. Piping may be installed in an environment such as within a trench in the earth, within the walls or ceiling of a building, between two already fixed but not necessarily aligned external elements, etc. Due to the general rigidity of such piping, care must be taken to accurately design, lay out and connect piping. Because adjacent pieces of piping and their fittings are often connected permanently (e.g., via an epoxy or the like), a technician connecting such elements has little flexibility in installation path and only one chance to make each connection correctly. Further, in some situations, the intended installation environment differs from the planned layout, for example, if a trench is not accurately dug or is dug differently than planned due to rocks or other unforeseen subterranean impediments, if a building is not constructed exactly to plan or plans are changed after piping layout is completed, etc. Thus, for various reasons, it can be difficult and time consuming to develop and install various types of piping systems. Also, in seismic zones, rigid pipe connections are subject to failure in case of an earthquake.
Accordingly, improvements would be welcome to piping systems that provide more flexibility in creating a layout or to a technician during installation, more reliability in case of seismic activity and/or addressing one or more drawbacks of current systems, or any other issues.